Posted on 06/16/2018 11:45:00 AM PDT by BBell
Rory Doyle’s ongoing personal project shares the story of African-American cowboy culture in the rural Mississippi Delta, challenging the Hollywood portrayal of the American cowboy. The work highlights the black cowboys and cowgirls in the Delta as a proud group existing beyond the movie image of the American West.
The project began in early 2017 when Doyle attended a rodeo celebrating black cowboy heritage in the region. Over the past year, he’s documented this band of horse riders in a place not typically known for its cowboys.
A recent article from Smithsonian magazine estimated that one in four cowboys was African-American following the Civil War, yet this population was drastically underrepresented in popular accounts. “Delta Hill Riders” sheds light on a prominent subculture historically overlooked, even in the Mississippi Delta.
Born in 1983, Maine native Doyle is currently based in Cleveland, Miss., the heart of the Delta. Doyle’s editorial work highlights populations in the region that are often unnoticed or underserved. Along with his series about African-American Delta cowboys, he has documented the growing Latino population in an area most known for its black and white history. Doyle’s publication list includes the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, ESPN’s “The Undefeated,” Getty Images, Vox Media and the Financial Times. He also provides marketing imagery for Delta State University.
Doyle has twice assisted Ron Haviv, photographer and co-founder of VII, while he instructed the documentary photography course for Barefoot Workshops in Clarksdale, Miss.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
had far more black cowboys than ever depicted in Hollywood movies......I got into a hell of a fight on FR with some Yahoo that never heard of the fact most cowboys shortly after the CW were blacks escaping from slavery and trying to make a living. They also trapped, built trading post and farmed where they could in the Rocky Mountains.
For years, up until this year there was a Black Cowboy museum along where Linden Blvd eastbound runs into the North Conduit. It went back at least 40 years that I remember. They had the names of accomplished Cowboys on signs hung on the corral fence. It was a little sad to see it go.
Interesting. One of my great grandfathers was a black Mississippi cowboy in the early 1900s.
My grandfather told me that he spent a year on the range, herding cattle with his dad when he was thirteen.
I never rode or herded cattle myself, but I do wear the hat (see my profile).
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when I was a kid we had a book about the real cowboys and a chapter was dedicated to black cowboys so I was familiar with them. I just had never actually seen A lot of them in real life. The ones I was familiar with were the white and Hispanic ones.
That is a not Ken Burns classic.
How about U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves. First black Marshal west of the Mississippi. Apprehended over 3,000 outlaws (only had to shoot 14 of them), took his oath seriously, arrested his own son for murder charges.
One of the interesting things about the movie Blazing Saddles is that it actually get a lot of details right, more than other westerns. The Trans-Continental railroad was built shortly after the Civil War, with both Union and Confederate former soldiers, Irish immigrants, former slaves, and Chinese workers.
Holy smokes! That picture of Bill Pickett looks eerily like my grandfather, who was the son of a black Mississipi cowboy.
Goose bumps.
Loved reading about cowboys, real or fictional.
It was a hard life but it did afford a measure of freedom and redemption. Lots were what we would call “social outcasts”
The cattlemen were an colorful lot, too. Surprised a few were of the old world money, lower or minor aristocracy, IIRC.
But then, you already knew that.(smiles)
Great Grandpa Lurkin “rode fence” on the Irvine Ranch. Does that mean he was bottom rung?
Cool. Maybe ya got some distant relatives in this bunch.
(Click The Pic)
IIRC, lots of black cowboys rode west with the herds, married Indian women, then settled down & raised families.
Gee, what keeps em from falling into the volcanoes?(Hahaha, see post# 17)
Whereever one has a herd of cows, you have to have somebody to tend to them.
Definitely possible, though my paternal line came out of northern Mississippi, not the delta.
There are cowboys everywhere.
I did, thank you.
“There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.”
––John Adams 1826
Tip of the hat.
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